How To Change CPU Priority and Why

How To Change CPU Priority and Why

CPU Priority – What is it?

Before the days of multi-core processors multitasking was a myth. Computers were linear in design. That is, they did one thing at a time. The illusion of multitasking came from the fact they did it so darn fast. Like billions of times per second fast.

So, forgetting all about the background services you have running, let’s just talk about a couple of applications. You need to think in terms of time slices. Each application, service and/or utility needs to use a portion of the time the CPU has to offer. That number is finite. You can easily understand why it is that the more things the CPU has to manage, the less time it has to offer each application.

Each application gets allocated a percentage of the total number of time slices. That can be evenly distributed across all the applications, or a given application can be given a bigger proportion of the total. Of course, this leaves less for the other application. Whichever application receives the most is going to run faster; conversely, the lower priority application will run slower.